Cash Flow Suffering? Change Shit Up!

Cash flow is the all-powerful financial tool. With it, you build wealth. Without it, you tread water.

Maybe you consider yourself better than average with money. You take pride in elaborate spreadsheets you created while pretending to do work at your 9-5. At times, you’ve skipped meals for the sole purpose of saving money. You don’t even need a budget because you’re a tightwad by nature.

Let’s face it, some months are thin even for the best of us. Maybe an extra tax bill comes due, or a large home repair or just plain old budgeting laziness. These months come around every once in a while no matter your financial competency.

I was hit with a negative month recently, and it sucked. If I don’t make some quick changes, it will happen again.

What Is Cash Flow?

Cash flow is a business and accounting term. Companies all have a cash flow statement. It’s corporate finance 101 material, but accountants still make them a little difficult for beginners.

…cash flow is the difference in amount of cash available at the beginning of a period (opening balance) and the amount at the end of that period (closing balance).

This quote resonates with me because each month I start with $2,500 in my checking account. During the month, I receive paychecks, write checks, pay bills, and invest using this checking account. On the last day, I take the final balance and transfer any amount over $2,500 into savings. Bad months, I transfer money from savings into checking. I always restart the month at $2,500.

So for example, if I end the month with $4,000 in my checking account after all the many various transactions, I transfer $1,500 to savings. That’s positive cash flow. I use that money to build wealth.

If instead the ending balance is $2,000, I transfer $500 into checking from savings. Negative cash flow. Now I’m treading water. Thankfully, these months are rare.

And that doesn’t include 401k contributions. That money never flows into my checking out, so I don’t count it.

I’m always saving throughout the month. At the end of the month, I’m usually still in positive cash flow territory. Those chunks of cash go to savings and often end up in my TD Ameritrade account.

Usually.

Like most people, I have recurring expenditures such as utilities, mortgages, non-cable related television, and non-interest credit card bills. When a home repair, tax, or vacation bill hits in certain months, cash flow can go in the shitter.

For one, we bought a new car with a payment (I’m not anti-new-car). The rate is 0.9%, so I consider it an OK decision because we wanted a minivan that would last us 10 years. We paid for half of it in cash. It’s a base model.

Then our property taxes went up.

On top of that, we had a third child. The day we received her Social Security card, I opened her a 529 plan. That’s an extra $300 added to the $600 we already save pretax (state only) for our other two kids. $900 cash flow gone. Though it’s an investment, I still treat it as a monthly expense.

The next big recurring expense we’re preparing for is a 2.5x increase in pre-school costs this coming September. That’s going to hurt.

So am I just screwed forever because my cash flow is taking a hit? No. But it’s time to look at cash flows to see where I can make some adjustments.

It’s time to change shit up.

Low Hanging Fruit

It sucks to see your monthly cash flow as zero or negative. There’s no one magic bullet for changing shit up. Everyone’s situation is unique.

But basically, you need to increase income, and/or decrease outflow. Start with the low hanging fruit.

OK, now that you’re back, here’s some other reliable methods for changing up your cash flow.

Rejigger Your Form W-4

One catalyst for writing this post was getting a large tax refund. Our family received $6,000 in tax refunds between State and Federal returns. That’s not good. I failed to follow my own advice by ignoring the hated W-4 form.

You receive the IRS form W-4 on your first day of work. Most people kind of follow the instructions, but don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and neither does the HR person that handed it to you. So you do your best.

If you actually work through the sheet, especially if you have a family, the claim numbers add up. We were at “5” when we got that $6,000 refund.

After filing my taxes this year, Tax Act stepped me through changing my W-4 form. It estimated I claim “9”. I ran through some calculations and settled on “8”. Sending an email to my HR rep required little effort to get it changed.

That one small change has increased my cash flow by about $200 per month.

Chunk Off Debt

This move can take some balls, but it’s rather simple in practice. If a particular debt payment is choking your cash flow, and you have the money, take a chunk of cash and pay it off.

For example, Let’s say you have a $10,000 balance on a car loan and your monthly payment is $300.

Come up with $10,000 and pay off the loan. That’s will increase your cash flow by $300. Of course, interest rates, opportunity costs, and psychology is involved too, but the math is simple.

Bad cash flow is depression for the soul. Chunking off debt might be the right move.

Decrease Your 401k

If your monthly cash flow is tight and you’re not happy about it, AND, you’re maxing out your 401k, cutting back on your contributions is an easy fix. Yeah, I know, you’re missing out on that tax-advantaged savings. But cash flow is king. Happiness is important too.

I actually recently came across a situation where I needed to reduce my 401k contributions in order to increase the total benefit.

Last year I ended up with less money by front-loading the maximum amount of contributions. My company, despite having a rather crappy 401k plan overall, does have a decent match. They match up to 4%, and the contributions vest at 100% immediately.

By contributing at 15% from January on, I hit the maximum amount I could contribute by law near the end of the year. Since I could not contribute to the plan anymore, I did not receive the 4% match for a few paychecks.

While not a big loss, it’s still money I could have put in my pocket.

In reaction to learning this, I lowered my 401k percentage to even out contributions throughout the year. This way I’ll get the match for every paycheck, but still contribute the annual maximum by December 31st.

A side effect is my monthly paychecks are larger.

Abandon DRIPs!

In a recent post I wrote about DRIPs (dividend reinvestment plans). The longer I’ve invested in them, the less inclined I am to continue. This April, I discontinued contributions to both lingering plans.

The reasons for discontinuing them vary. But it was, in part, cash flow driven. I asked myself, is adding $100 a month to both the Procter & Gamble DRIP, and the Aqua America DRIP, the absolute best use of $200 every month?

I decided I’d rather cash flow that $200 instead of DRIP it.

Another reason was that both DRIPs reached the $3,000 mark. When I initially set up these DRIPs, that was the level I wanted to reach to generate respectable dividend income. Going forward, I’ll likely take PG and transfer to TD Ameritrade to pool the dividends.

Aqua America gives DRIP participants a 5% discount to reinvest dividends. For example, if I reinvest my dividends when the stock is trading at $30, my price to buy shares is $28.5. That’s a rare discount I’m taking full advantage of. As long as that perk continues, I’ll keep the DRIP going.

But the move to end these DRIP contributions increases my cash flow by $200.

Doesn’t sound like much, but add that to the W-4 adjustment and the 401k change, my cash flow has increased by $600-700 every month.

About Retire Before Dad

I’m a 41-year-old investor based in the Washington, DC area. My plan is to retire at age 55, one year before my Dad retired. I track my progress towards financial independence using a free and recommended tool called Personal Capital.
My first love is my beautiful wife and three kids. My second love is travel. Combining both in early retirement is the ultimate goal and my primary motivation for financial independence. Read my complete story HERE.

15 Responses to Cash Flow Suffering? Change Shit Up!

We’ve been even-steven lately. It’s better than negative cash flow but not were we want to be. So I guess it’s time to change shit up. 🙂 The goal is to have a surplus each much and save as much as possible.

DD,
Our months really fluctuate these days. The negative ones feel terrible. We need to buy a few car seats next month. That’s the kind of thing that really throws us off. I’m trying to simplify things as well, and hopefully that will help cut back on the variability.
-RBD

The past two months have definitely shown a negative cash-flow, which is painful. We had two pricier than needed vacations. The plan to change it up is to find some of the leaks. I have a pretty exhaustive budget, but I still find things that slip through the cracks. Our biggest “leak” is travel. We don’t designate specific travel funds, just take it out of savings without a plan. Finding that to be a huge problem and need to plug the hole. Great article!

Grant,
Yeah, that’s the best way to do it. I was just lazy and didn’t fill out the form! Actually, we get a lot of deductions with three kids and make less now as a family since my wife stopped working. Now I think I have it in order.
-RBD

This month (May) is going to be a negative month for me for the first time in a long time, and I’m really beating myself up over it. Overall, my average is still going to be about +$1500 per month over the past 35 months so I’m still doing fine. But I definitely do need to make some adjustments and get back onto the positive side of the ledger. Luckily I know exactly where every dollar went so I know what to do different. Most of it was caused by laziness.

Lol, you hooked me with that title! I recently changed up things to help our cash flow by cancelling a worthless home warranty we thought was providing security, changing insurance carriers and refinancing our mortgage. It’s amazing to have more breathing room to catch up on some savings goals and throw at student loans.

Latoya,
Ha ha, luckily not too many people are offended by four letter words. I strongly dislike home warranties. Every time I’ve had them, they don’t cover what I needed done. Talk about fine print!
-RBD

Definitely a fan of changing what is not working for you. This month was supposed to be about beginning the savings for my down payment, but the gig dried up and has not replaced itself yet. I’ve changed what I’m saving, but mainly focused on my other revenue streams to try and increase them.

I feel like this is essential reading for everyone struggling with their finances. I kept nodding my head as I was reading. Love this – “Do an effing budget to figure out where the leaks are”. It really is as simple and complicated as that.

Thanks for the post – great stuff. Love the idea of approaching things from a different angle. Some creative ideas here, but the increase rent idea makes me nervous. That should be approached carefully. If your renters bail and you get stuck floating the mortgage for a month or two, that’s going to take a long time to recover from.

Favorite idea here is reworking the W4.

One more idea for you – for those with student loans, often the lender will allow temporary forbearance for a few months. Its a great way to temporarily free up cash flow, allowing you to get some breathing room or even attack another bill.

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